How I Did That

Blame It On My Youth

How I Did That                                             Newsletter #5

Blame It On My Youth

My friends all say I was born old, and that it's only now I've begun acting my age.  One of the luxuries of being a kid growing up in the 1960's was that kids were expected to be indecisive, easily distracted, and fickle. I was just the opposite.  By the time I was ten years old, I knew exactly what I wanted...laser focused, I wanted to be in the entertainment business.

Early Lessons

I must've initially caught the bug through the Million Dollar Movies on television and by  watching classic movies like The King and I at the Whalley theatre with my Grandmothers.  When I was 10 years old I was further mesmerized by the 3 live stage musicals I saw all in one weekend: Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand, Fiddler on the Roof with Zero Mostel, and I Had A Ball with Buddy Hackett on Broadway in New York City.  But I wasn't your typical 'I wanna act, I wanna be a star' kid. I was fascinated with the 'behind the scenes people' - in particular the person in charge, the producer.   

Unlike any other kid I knew, I subscribed to Weekly Variety and focused on how the business of show business worked. Variety arrived rolled up and wrapped in brown paper every Wednesday and when it came I immediately read it cover to cover.  Like many kids in the '60's, I was IQ tested a few times.  I scored high - but certainly not cause I was studious....I think it was cause I was street smart, instinctive and able to solve problems very quickly.  But I'm sure if they had tested me on show business, I would have aced it!   On the other hand, in high school I was quite lousy at many things like playing on the soccer field, solving complex chemical equations or even paying attention in French class, but I was very good at staying true to my life's goals.  My school in New Haven was one of the feeders for Yale University.  Hopkins School graduates have gone on to professions like wildly successful Corporate leaders, State Department lawyers, and surgeons creating innovative new operations. I did none of the above.  I didn’t go to Yale. I didn’t go on to save the world or grow its economy or win a Pulitzer or Nobel prize. What I did was make the world laugh a little, fall in love sometimes, and perhaps feel a little better about themselves. I pursued my career in theatre, music, film, and television which was doubtlessly due in part to my uncontrollable desire to please people. There was (and still is) no better joy for me than seeing a person smile, cry, or raise their spirits as a result of experiencing something I helped to create. The sound of applause was so rewarding it was infectious, and I got infected big time!   Keep in mind that at this early age I thought I could do anything in regards to entertainment - mostly because I really didn't know any better.  I would head full steam towards any hinderance - and most of the time, would figure a way to get over it, around it, or go right through it.

High School Lessons

Back in the late 1960's, to my knowledge not many teenagers knew how to rent a film and show it.  I had learned about movie rental houses from reading Variety.  One of the films I liked the most was Sergeant York, and so I set the wheels in motion to show this film.  At that time at Hopkins, there was still a routine of a daily morning assembly and chapel. I believe the school was mostly presbyterian or protestant - but can't remember exactly. It was definitely Christian in nature, and for a 15 year old Jewish kid - the religious part was completely foreign to me.  In my sophomore year, for my humanities course project I chose to show Sergeant York to the entire school in the assembly hall. After I got approval for a date, I sent away to the film rental house to make the appropriate inquiries about renting, shipping and exhibiting it (16mm) at the school.

I never thought twice about it - I simply chose a film that I adored, not for the religious overtones -but mainly for the heroism of the lead character, Sergeant Alvin York played by Gary Cooper. Instinctively I knew the importance of the lessons of Sergeant York's bravery and his ingenuity for solving problems would be well received.  But the added benefits, which frankly I had never even considered were that I was showing this film to a school of future leaders and very impressionable minds.  The Viet Nam war was raging at the time, and this particular story preached non-violence and conscientious objection, while also having a religious tone who's messages would certainly be meaningful to a protestant/presbyterian leaning school. The film was extremely well received by the students, the faculty, my teacher and the headmaster, and I certainly relished the applause.

I was lucky enough to attend a school that was not only one of the first established in the country, but one which remained relatively small in size and was forward thinking about how to educate students. Senior class students had a lot of leeway in determining their own course for that year. In my senior year - I was assigned a 'faculty advisor' - Mr. Crawford- a teacher who supervised selected senior projects (should you choose to do one).  A senior project, if accepted, allowed the student NOT to attend any classes in the last year of high school, but to concentrate on the project and present a written thesis or dissertation at the end of the year.  We are talking about a whole year off from a place I was never too thrilled to be in and on top of that - I figured something out that I would enjoy doing, so as not to feel like I was doing any school work at all!  What I landed on allowed me not to have to write anything for my thesis.  I would produce three separate shows for three high schools in the New Haven area, and my report at the end of the year would be the actual live performances of these shows, which my advisor Mr Crawford would attend.  How could I be any luckier??  The project was accepted and I went about working with the various schools.  I really felt as though I had put one over on the school, but in retrospect....I did much more work than anyone else in my class that year or than anyone else who opted for a Senior Project and I learned more about my chosen profession than I ever could in math, science, or French classes.        

The shows I produced were for Amity High School in Woodbridge CT, Sacred Heart Academy in Hamden CT, and one at Hopkins.  The first one, at Amity was to be my biggest challenge.  I had been through their summer theatre workshop the past year, and was very familiar with the school and its drama students.  Once a year the drama teacher chose a musical to direct, and I met with her and the drama class as she explained that the show they had really wanted to do, apparently wasn't available yet  and given its current success would likely be far too expensive for them to license.  Hello Dolly was their first choice, and so I asked her if she could give me a few days to look into it.  I did, and the highly successful Broadway production was currently in its 5th sold-out year....but I learned that the amateur rights (for community productions) were being released very shortly.  I secured the rights for Amity and the drama class....and proceeded to produce the show for this wonderful drama class which was comprised of extremely talented actors, singers, dancers, and scenic designers.  I developed a program for the show, for which we sold advertising, in order to raise additional production funds for the drama club.  That Spring's show was a rousing success for the school, and I was personally very pleased with what I was able to contribute as a producer.   Anecdote - life is a series of circles: Many years later I produced a show at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the Los Angeles Music Center which honored Jerry Herman- the composer of this musical, and was later at his apartment.  I told him the story of my first high school "licensing" of Hello Dolly. He was so very gracious (as always) and thanked me for the money!

Sacred Heart Academy was a completely different experience but equally as rewarding.  First - it was an all-girls Catholic high school. That alone, was very satisfying for a 16 year old boy.  But I also learned that working with Nuns was for me a great pleasure - and things always went so smoothly because they were in charge (By the way, the girls at the school had a different opinion of them!)  Whatever I needed, whatever was good for the show - miraculously appeared. The musical we did was Plain and Fancy - which had a pleasant enough script with some good music.  Our program book raised a ton of money, any sets or props or costumes needed for the show were supplied by the fathers club - anything we needed was available.  There was never a 'no' response to any Sister asking the girls' fathers for something.  I guess it's the way that the nuns 'asked' for things.  For me - well, I helped get all the boys parts filled by guys I knew around town, I guided the production with whatever expertise I had acquired by that time, and I cannot tell you how pleasant it was at the end of each day as I was leaving and the nuns would always say to me - "God Bless you", and "we'll pray for you".  I admit that really got to me, and I would, to this day, do just about anything that a nun asked me to do.

Yet another circle closed for me 40 years after we did this show, as I was asked by Broadway icon Barbara Cook (the original star of Plain and Fancy on Broadway), to help her with her career, and to get her autobiography completed and published.

The 3rd show which was at Hopkins took a 180 degree turn from these two musicals.  It was a straight play called Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco. My title was 'business manager' - but I was also involved in many aspects the producer would have been. An interesting aside about this production - Oscar winning actor Paul Giamatti's mother taught at our school and was the coach for the actors in this production.

The Report Card: After Mr. Crawford saw these three productions, he gave my Senior Project a passing grade, and I graduated high school.

Straw Hat Lessons

I filled my summer days working as an apprentice at Oakdale Musical Theatre - a tent that was erected each year as part of the summer straw hat circuit.  My salary was $20 per week, but I couldn't have paid them enough for the opportunity this afforded me for learning my craft.  Every day I was immersed in different shows - different lighting, sound, music - many casts, and many stars.  It was the type of job I could only dream of - even if I was also relegated to some of the 'lesser' desirable jobs on the property.

When I could, I tried to look after people with any contribution I could make.  For instance, the stars would arrive and usually play the tent for a week at a time.  Their dressing room facility was a crummy trailer the owner rented for the summer.  It was less than inviting, but serviceable. One day after Mr. Liberace had opened (and he put on a spectacular show - clearly living up to his nickname 'Mr. Showmanship'), I was told to come in to work a couple of hours prior to the show because his agent was coming in early for a meeting and they were going to have dinner in the dressing trailer. I would have to bring their order over from the restaurant on the grounds. I knew what kind of 'to go' dinners were packed by the Tavern, and that the dishes and silverware in the trailer were horrid, so I went home and got my mother's best china, crystal glassware and silverware - and set up a table for Mr. Lee and his Agent - Roger Vorce. I served them their steaks and baked potatoes with proper place settings, as it should be!  I'd like to point out that Mr. Vorce was one of the most important agents in the concert industry, and 15 years later (circles) I would approach him to represent my client Rosemary Clooney - which he fortunately agreed to do. Subsequently, Roger,  Rosemary and I all remained very close friends until the end of their lives.

When I was 17, I started my own Summer Theatre Workshop in West Haven CT.  I raised the money, hired the two best teachers in town to direct and musical direct, brought in students from schools all over the City- and produced Funny Girl.  I called my company Theatre Workshop Associates, cause at the time, TWA was a highly visible and recognized brand name in the US, and I thought it would garner more attention for us.  This was a very exciting time, as we had the best of the best student performers and we were going to present one of Broadway's greatest musicals.   

Around every corner that summer lay another challenge for us all, but ones that were always met head-on.  Take for instance the cost of wheels for three moving platforms. Our set designer had a brilliant idea to have scenes change by rolling platforms upstage and downstage, allowing the stage crew to place appropriate drops, flats, and set dressings on them when the  platforms were out of sight of the audience.  We had the lumber to build the platforms, we had the paint for the scenery- but we didn't have wheels to make them travel upstage and downstage.  We needed approximately 24 sturdy 5 inch wheels in order to make this work and they were expensive. In those days, a few hundred dollars was  A LOT of money to a high schooler - and we didn't have enough for this added cost in the set construction budget.......so, ingenuity and criminal behavior took over.

One day we stopped for some groceries before going to work, and realized that the carts used for shopping had exactly the kind of wheels we needed....and that the front two wheels on each cart were not welded on, but bolted on instead.  They could be easily removed.  So, I got a few of the set construction students together one night and drove with them in my car to the empty parking lot of the grocery store, after closing time.  In those days, customers typically left their carts where they had parked, and the store left them scattered around the lot all night.  When we arrived, we drove around, pulled up next to the carts - and with trusty crescent wrenches in hand....stealthily removed the front two wheels from a dozen carts in a variety of locations in the parking lot.

As we drove off, I looked in my rear view mirror to see a quiet scene of what looked like gentle steel cows grazing in the moonlight. When I drove by the same parking lot the next morning on the way to the theatre, the de-wheeled carts were still there but now they only appeared as stark reminders of a midnight crime spree. (Note - this was my first and only criminal act in all of my years in Entertainment, and I am hereby confessing to it.  Although never admitting guilt, we did make it up in some ways to the injured party - in this case, a supermarket.  We all vowed to return to the scene of the crime and shop there for groceries as often as possible!)

Institute of Higher Learning Lessons

Going to college is not what I wanted to do, but it was expected. I only applied to two schools...UCLA and Ithaca College.  UCLA cause it was in Los Angeles California (the entertainment capital of the world) and offered classes in all of my fields of interest. Although an out-of-state student was charged a hefty premium to attend UCLA, its what I really wanted. But my parents didn't. They simply didn't want me living 3,000 miles away.  So it was off to Ithaca (New York), which I chose because they had a brand new, state of the art theatre - and a very good theatrical program. I took every course I could fit in while I was there (only stayed a year) and learned about acting, scenic design, make-up, lighting design, shop/set construction, costume building, and even ballet. But most of all I got involved in every production I could.

My favorite teacher while I was at college was the shop instructor, Bob Pratt.  He was my favorite for many reasons - mostly because he was just a regular guy. No pretense. All he was there to do was help the students.  I hung out in the shop whenever I was't in a scheduled class or rehearsal.   The Senior class had decided that they wanted to present Company as their musical that year.  Mr Pratt was telling me about it just before the Thanksgiving holiday and explained that the problem they ran into was that it was too expensive to build a set reminiscent of the one on Broadway. (The original set looked like an apartment building structure similar to the look of Hollywood squares. 9 squares built on top of one another - 3 across, 3 up and down. The design used elevators to bring characters from one level to another in front of the audience.  It was a wonderfully effective concept, and the production team for the show at Ithaca wanted to replicate it. The only problem as Mr. Pratt explained it to me, was the cost of building it - the raw materials were going to be way too expensive and much too much for the show's budget.

I went home for the holiday and thought about this problem for a bit.....and remembered that the local office of steelmaker Bethlehem Steel (out of Pittsburgh) was right next door to my father's office. I walked into their office, and asked about getting some steel (specifically slotted steel - which looks like a giant erector set) donated to our school for the production.  I was given a person to speak with at the home office in Pittsburgh, and in just a few days, we had all the slotted steel we needed to build this set- free of charge.  I called Mr. Pratt with the information and he was needless-to-say surprised...but extremely pleased. And I too was extremely pleased that I could help solve this problem and help the class present Company.

I promise I'll never do THAT again!

During my year at college, Sacred Heart Academy decided they wanted to perform Fiddler on the Roof as their spring musical, and the nuns asked me to produce it.  I was thrilled, and didn't mind traveling back and forth between Ithaca and New Haven each weekend (4-5 hour drive) as this is what I wanted to do, and working at Sacred Heart was a pleasure for me.  One of the skills I had acquired at college was theatrical make-up. I learned to be proficient at building beards from crepe hair, latex, and spirit gum.  I built beards on all of the guys in the production, and as this was still an all-girls school, a large part of the girls chorus had to be made up as men (with beards and mustaches).  What I didn't know when I got started is that teenage girls have very fine hairs growing on their faces, and when you apply glues like latex and spirit gum to those hairs, then pull the beards off repeatedly, those tiny hairs begin to grow back in, and they grow back in thicker and much darker than they originally were.  At the end of the run of performances, there were a dozen girls with significant dark hair growth on their faces, all because of me.  Some of the girls actually thought of it as a badge of honor, and the nuns thought is was funny, but I didn't.  I was SO humiliated that I didn't know of this beforehand and that I caused these girls such potential embarrassment.  I'm sure a bit of cosmetic treatment eventually took care of the problem, but that still didn't make me feel any better. However - I learned an important lesson and never did THAT again!

The performances for Fiddler were packed, and it was regarded as the best production ever at the school.  I was extremely happy about that. I’m very proud of a photo I have of me attending opening night in top hat and tails. (Flo Ziegfeld, indeed!)  Perhaps even Flo might not have tried to produce Fiddler on the Roof for an all-girls Catholic high school.  But I did and for me it was another challenge that paid off, in spite of populating this world with a few more bearded ladies.

3,000 Miles Away, At Last!

All of this teenage focus, practice and determination combined, added up to my ticket to Hollywood. Beverly Hills actually, where I first lived just around the corner from Mitzi Gaynor and Jack Bean at the Beverly Terrace Motel ($10 per night - which I personally didn't pay for cause I didn't have even that much). My address was at the corner of Doheny and Santa Monica with only a small black and white television for companionship, across the street from Carl's little grocery store - where my dinner came from on most nights. A 19 year old who sometimes found himself driving Mr. Bean's brand new Camero at over 90 miles per hour, not by choice, but forced to keep up with the 'normal' speed of the other cars on the LA Freeways. It scared me shitless to be driving his car, and to be driving in LA's apparently 'no speed limit' freeway traffic!  To say the least, my experiences at the time were like the traffic: fast and a bit confusing at first, but not impossible to navigate. Probably I just didn't know enough to be trepidatious or nervous, which led to my growth and eventually to where I am in the entertainment world nearly 50 years later. Its been a fun, story-filled ride so far.

My show business career is definitely attributable to the never-changing attitude I nurtured: one that doesn't believe in 'no' or 'it can't be done'.  I've continued to live and work with the positive drive, dedication and single-mindedness that says there's always a way to accomplish something, and as a result, my dream of entertaining has been overwhelmingly fulfilled.  As the songwriter wrote: ‘And if only just for this, I did exist' I know exactly what to blame it on!

end.

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Hope I can help!  All the best, Allen